scholarly journals The separation of church and state as the foundation of religious toleration in Locke’s political thought

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Ivan Matic
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Moment

The subject of this paper will be the analysis of the question of religious toleration in the political thought of seventeenth century English philosopher John Locke. The first part of the paper will discuss the foundational principles of Locke?s political thought, particularly his contract theory. The second part will be dedicated to situating his positions on freedom of religion within the domain of that theory, accentuating the moment of separation between church and state. The final part will analyze the implications of religious toleration, as well as its limits, upon which Locke?s criterion of freedom of religion will be critically examined.

Calvinists, Arminians, Socinians: Popular Sovereignty and Natural Rights in Early Modern Political Thought

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
James Moore
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Hugo Grotius

This chapter focuses upon natural rights in the writings of Hugo Grotius, the Levellers and John Locke and the manner in which their understanding of rights was informed by distinctive Protestant theologies: by Arminianism or the theology of the Remonstrant Church and by Socinianism. The chapter argues that their theological principles and the natural rights theories that followed from those principles were in conflict with the theology of Calvin and the theologians of the Reformed church. The political theory that marks the distinctive contribution of Calvin and the Reformed to political theory was the idea of popular sovereignty, an idea revived in the eighteenth century, in the political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The view from the devil’s mountain: Clarendon, Cressy and Hobbes, and the past, present and future of the Church of England

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Seaward
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The lives, and political thought, of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, and Thomas Hobbes, were closely interwoven. In many ways opposed, their views on the relationship between Church and State have often been seen as less far apart, with Clarendon sharing Hobbes’s Erastianism and concerns about clerical assertiveness in the 1660s. But Clarendon’s writings on Church-State relations during the 1670s provide little evidence of concern about clerical involvement in politics, and demonstrate his vigorous adherence to a fairly conventional view among early seventeenth-century churchmen about the proper boundaries to royal interference in the Church; his worries about attempts to push further the implications of the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs are evident in his writings against Hobbes, as are his even greater anxieties, exacerbated by the conversion of his daughter, the Duchess of York, about the dangers of Roman Catholic encroachment.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Todd Butler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cognitive Perspective ◽  
Shared Attention ◽  
Stuart England ◽  
To Come

This chapter explains how the political changes of early Stuart England can be usefully examined from a cognitive perspective, with questions of authority and sovereignty being determined not just by what individuals or institutions do but also by how they are understood and expected to think, and in particular how they were expected to come to decisions. In doing so, it links early modern and contemporary understandings of state formation in seventeenth-century England to processes of decision-making and counsel, as well as the management of personal and public opinion, thereby explicating the mental mechanics of early modern governance. More than being simply a form of political thought or doctrine, intellection is presented as a shared attention to cognitive processes amidst historical moments in which we can see particular patterns of thinking—and attention to them as politics—begin to emerge.

Schütz's Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich? and the Politics of the Thirty Years War

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 355-408
Author(s):  
Derek Stauff
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Devotional Writings

For early modern Lutherans Heinrich Schütz's Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich? would have evoked fears of religious persecution. Its text, from the narrative of Paul's conversion in Acts 9, appears in seventeenth-century devotional writings and confessional polemics about persecution. Moreover, recently uncovered archival evidence shows that Schütz performed his concerto in 1632 at a state-sponsored political festival marking the first anniversary of the Battle of Breitenfeld, a major Protestant victory in the Thirty Years War. Here Schütz's concerto clearly stoked fears of persecution, because the celebrations touted the battle as a victory over Catholic oppression. The political context in 1632 might also explain some of the piece's most notable features. Its unusually brief text and vivid music do not illustrate the whole story of Saul's conversion but solely the moment at which Christ intervened to put a stop to persecution. Schütz's listeners would have heard in Saul's example a parallel to the victory they were celebrating in 1632 and the persecution they feared from their Catholic and imperial adversaries. This performance of Saul, the only one known from Schütz's lifetime, shows how his music partook in a broader campaign of Protestant propaganda designed to reinforce the confessional and political divisions that fueled this phase of the war.

Seldenism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Visconsi
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Table Talk ◽  
Great Scholar ◽  
John Selden

The great scholar and legal thinker John Selden was a subject of contested memory in the politically turbulent years following his death. This article reads the collection Table-Talk as a work of popular constitutional commentary specifically designed to advance, for lay audiences, the scholar’s quasi-Erastian vision of religious toleration and the proper relations between church and state. Selden, in this account, is made legible for all readers as an early voice skeptical of priestcraft and as a leading figure in the doctrines coalescing around the functional separation of church and state in the later seventeenth century.

Church and State in Stanley Fish's Antiliberalism

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 911-924 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Judd Owen
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Neutrality ◽  
Stanley Fish

Even though they contain one of the most forceful critiques of liberalism in contemporary political thought, the political writings of Stanley Fish have been neglected by political theorists. Fish's critique of liberal claims of moral and religious neutrality points to the conclusion that the liberal separation of church and state lacks a coherent justification. I offer a qualified defense of liberalism by arguing that while Fish's critique of liberal neutrality is sound, he fails to do justice to liberalism's substantive basis. Moreover, by simply negating liberalism, Fish's thinking remains within the liberal horizon in a way he fails to recognize.

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